Chamber Thirteen
by What'dYouExpect
Summary: There's a reason why Stanford Pines hides his past, the terrible and dark secrets of his brother haunt him to the very core. When the twins uncover this truth, they're in for a rude awakening, and will quickly understand why they've never met Stanley Pines. (Three-Shot) *Rating will be bumped up to M after chapter one.


"Hey Dipper, have you seen Waddles anywhere?" Mabel inquired as she bent down and peeked briefly under her bed before popping up and spinning towards her brother, who was hard at work catching up on hidden codes he had found in the third journal.

Dipper peered up from the tattered red book in his hands and glanced at his worried sister. She was dressed in her usual outfit consisting of a sweater, a black skirt and her black slip-on shoes. Mabel's maroon colored sweater sported a white rabbit on the front with every last detail sown onto white stitching. "No, I haven't." He stated simply, before burying his face back in the journal.

Mabel huffed and stormed out of the room, leaving Dipper there to continue deciphering his precious codes. She walked down the steps that led to the living room and entered the space. The television was flickering, but no one was on the couch watching the flashing pictures of a dog lapping up a suspect's blood. "Grunkle Stan?" Mabel called out. There was an extremely eerie essence that filled the room to the brim, leaving Mabel very uncomfortable and scared. "Grunkle Stan?" She whispered, turning around to see a shadow standing in the door way with a sharp object.

Mabel shouted and backed away as the figure stepped into the light of the television. "Hey dude." Soos laughed. "Why are you screaming? Was there some sort of contest no one told me about?" He asked, tapping a screwdriver in the palm of his hand.

Mabel, relieved to see that it was her chubby friend, walked forward and looked under the couch for her pig. "You haven't seen Waddles, have you Soos?" She inquired while pushing herself off the floor.

"Sorry hambone. I haven't seen... ham... bone in a while." Soos repeatedly raised his eyebrows to signal that he quite enjoyed his terrible pun.

"Booooo. That was terrible Soos." Grunkle Stan said non nonchalantly as he waltzed into the room with a mug full of swirling black coffee. "I might have to fire you if you come up with another pun like that." He added, flicking on the lights and walking over to his yellow chair to sit down.

Mabel figured she'd give her great uncle a try and hope that he had come across her porky friend. "You haven't seen..."

"No, I haven't seen your pig." Grunkle Stan said apathetically as he attempted to flick on the television that had mysteriously turned off when Soos startled Mabel. "Why won't this thing turn on?" He said through his teeth, repeatedly clicking the power button on the remote. Finally the screen turned on after a few smacks of the remote, but the picture quality was terrible, as pixels were out of place and made the characters on Tyler, The Blind Dog, look fuzzy. "What's wrong with this thing?" Stan complained, changing the channel and noticing that the same problem was occurring on all the stations.

"Maybe it needs glasses." Soos said seriously... or at least, it sounded like he wasn't joking around.

"Soos, go home." Stan said angrily, pointing towards the door in the other room while he turned off the television. Soos hung his head and sadly whispered "Okay" before leaving Mabel alone with Stan as he walked home. He slurped from his mug before gently setting it down on the skull of some kind of animal that was next to the couch. "Where did you see your pig last?" He asked Mabel.

Mabel tried to think back to this morning when she was rushing around the house with Dipper. "I think it was this morning in the gift shop." She replied.

"Did you let him outside at all?" Grunkle Stan asked while keeping his attention glued to his altered reflection on the blackened television.

"No." Mabel started to walk out of the room. "I'll check the gift shop." She said, beginning to call out the pig's name as she walked through the kitchen. On her way into the gift shop she bumped into Dipper, who was still reading the journal. Both of the twins fell to the ground and the book consequently went flying into the gift shop and landed with a thud on the ground. "You should really put that book down and watch where you're going." Mabel told her brother as he helped her off the ground.

"Sorry." Dipper said weakly. Something seemed to be bugging the kid, and his twin sister caught on nearly immediately.

"What's wrong Dipper?" Mabel asked sincerely, placing her hand on the back of Dipper's shoulders as she got closer to him.

"Nothing... I just read some... startling things in the journal." Dipper paused and shivered, sending vibrations through Mabel's palm. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Okay." Mabel said sadly before perking up a little. "Do you think you could help me find Waddles?"

"Sure." Dipper responded with a half smile. The two twins walked into the empty and dark gift shop and turned on the lights, revealing all the items and gadgets littered on shelves around the walls. Dipper walked over to the journal and picked it up, wincing as he placed it in his vest. The twins' eyes darted high and low in search of Waddles, but with no pink in sight Mabel began to break down in tears.

"He's gone Dipper." She sobbed. "It's all my fault, I lost him."

"Don't say that Mabel, we've barely even..." Dipper stopped his talking once the pair heard a light oink from somewhere in the gift shop.

"Did you hear that?" Mabel said in jubilation, perking up instantaneously and trying to detect the source of the sound. Dipper held up his finger to silence Mabel as they both listened carefully for another snort...

"It's coming from... behind the vending machine?" Dipper said bewilderingly. "How is that possible?" He asked, walking up to the machine and tapping on it gently while Mabel trailed closely in his wake.

"Waddles!" Mabel shouted as she began to bang on the glass furiously. She began to run her hand along the buttons of the machine aimlessly, and somehow, managed to unlock the combination to Grunkle Stan's secret lair.

The startled twins jumped back from the slightly opened door and stared in amazement at a potential mystery beginning to unfold. "Woah..." They said, in unison, out of shock and awe. Dipper stepped forward and pulled the door open, suspiciously looking around the gift shop as he did so. There was another oink, this one from down the staircase that lead to an unknown location. Dipper silently motioned for Mabel to walk forward with him. She obliged as they entered the darkened hallway with a pig's snort echoing along the damp walls and into the twins' brains. Dipper pulled out the emergency cell phone and flipped it open, only dimly lighting up a few feet in front of them. Mabel giggled softly before they began their decent down the stairs, tiptoeing down each step quietly while listening for any noises Waddles could make.

When the twins reached the bottom, they immediately noticed the open elevator sitting in front of their path. There was another echo of a pig's snort, causing Mabel and Dipper to look at each other and nod. As they pressed onward, the two twins entered the elevator and watched, half out of horror, as the doors shut on them and the elevator began to lower to the second floor. "Did you press any buttons Mabel?" Dipper asked somewhat angrily.

"No. Did you?" She asked cautiously before the elevator shook and came to a halt, causing both the twins to lose their balance and fall on their behinds. The doors opened swiftly, revealing a long and narrow hallway that featured a door at the end of the walk that was lit up by a flashing sign. "Chamber 13?" Mabel said in confusion as Dipper helped her up from the elevator floor.

"Where's one through twelve?" Dipper asked, not actually expecting an answer from his sister. She shrugged as they walked out of the elevator into the damp and dark hallway. Dipper put his hand on the wall and pulled it back immediately after his palm went through a cobweb and touched the cold metal exterior. "I think we should go back." He said, wiping his hand on his shirt to relieve it of the sticky web he had brought back to his side. Dipper turned back to the elevator and found himself running when he noticed the doors closing. Dipper slid in an attempt to get his foot in between the doors, but ended up slamming his leg into the metal when it came to a close. Dipper lowered his head and smacked his hand on the hard dirt covered ground.

Mabel walked over to he brother and pointed in the direction of the neon Chamber 13 sign. "I think I heard Waddles' oink from behind the door." Dipper rolled his eyes and got up to follow his sister down the hallway and over to the metal door. As they walked the two kids remained silent to listen for the pig, but once they reached the door, all they could hear was a light humming sound that was being emitted from the neon green sign above them. Dipper reached for the handle and turned the golden knob, simultaneously pushing the door open to expose an all white room. The twins peered around while stepping onto the white tiled flooring in front of the door, which shut, almost cliche like, on them. "I don't see Waddles." Mabel said, turning to her brother.

Dipper remained silent as he continued to scan the empty room ignoring the closed door behind him. The walls seemed to be made of a white painted concrete, while the floors were composed of large, laminate, white squares. The ceiling was lacking color as well, with the exception of the yellowish light dispersing from the elongated light bulbs hanging horizontally from their fixtures. However, what drew in Dipper's attention were three black painted wooden chairs in the center of the room and an open cage in the far corner. He immediately noticed that the chairs had shackles on each arm and leg before realizing there were three black hemisphere extending down from the ceiling on a long silver poles overhead each chair. "Mabel, what is this place?" He said in awe.

There was no answer. So when Dipper turned expecting to see his sister, the room went pitch black. There was a scream, the door to the room locked, and the neon sign overhead the door changed from green to red as Dipper felt something smash onto his skull.

* * *

Dipper's eyes slowly fluttered open to a mostly dark room. The only source of light seemed to come from directly overhead, but when Dipper tried to move his neck, he found himself restrained. In a heartbeat, Dipper went from groggy to wide-awake as he struggled to move his arms and legs from his seated position. "Mabel?" He called out worriedly while struggling to break free from the metal vices that held him in place. Dipper became silent when he felt his chair begin to turn to his left. His eyes darted around cautiously, hoping to find that his sister was okay. But as the chair continued to spin slowly, the dark shadow of a figure his size came into view in the spinning chair next to him. "Mabel!" He shouted as he tried to distinguish the girl's features to make sure she was okay. "Who are you and what do you want?" Dipper yelled, keeping his eyes on the darkened figure of his sister.

The light overhead Mabel flickered on, exposing a bleeding forehead to Dipper. The blood was slowly dripping from beneath her hair and down the left side of her nose, forming a small crimson puddle above her lip before crashing down and splattering all over her maroon sweater. "Mabel!" Dipper shouted, half in tears an fearing the absolute worst.

"She's fine." A gruff and deeper voice said from behind Dipper. "For now anyways." The voice sounded similar to Grunkle Stan's but seemed to have a darker and more poetic tone to it.

Dipper tried to turn his neck to see where the source of the talking was echoing from but found that would be impossible with the restraints, so he gave up rather quickly. "Who... who are you?" Dipper stuttered, slightly relieved that she was okay, but still completely panicking over the current situation.

"Who I am doesn't matter at the moment." The voice said, getting closer to Dipper's right ear which was facing the door. "But I do have a question for you." The man paused before stepping directly in front of Dipper, scaring the child as he bent down and got just inches from the twelve year old's nose. "Who are you?"

Dipper closed his eyes out of fear and choked, but somehow managed to stutter the words out. "I'm Dipper Pines... and that's my sister, Mabel."

The man backed away slowly and examined the boy, taking in every aspect, every last detail that was noticeable. "Are you twins?" He asked lightly.

Dipper opened his eyes once the surprisingly fresh breath had cleared away from his nose. In front of him stood a man eerily similar to Grunkle Stan. Only a few subtle differences such as the glasses this man wore, the scar on his left cheek and a tattoo of some odd symbol on his left arm, were visible to the naive child. "Grunkle Stan?" Dipper said innocently.

The man, who was not at all the Grunkle Stan Dipper had come to love, was infuriated by this assumption and walked up to Dipper only to lunge a small knife into the child's upper thigh. Dipper let out a scream of pain, one that woke Mabel up from her unconscious slumber and echoed throughout the room, ringing in Stanley Pines' ears as he removed the knife from the ailing boy while blood began to seep through his gray shorts, permanently staining them a dark red. "How do you know my name is Stan?" The man said furiously. "Tell me!" He shouted, getting back into Dipper's tearing eyes.

"Leave my brother alone!" Mabel shouted from behind the angry man. Stanley Pines immediately snapped his neck back towards Mabel and gave her the most terrifying glare she had ever encountered.

He quietly and slowly walked up to her, standing over the shaking girl while watching her tremble in fear. He smirked and then slapped Mabel straight across the right cheek, leaving a wide, five-fingered hand print on her reddened face. The smack echoed around the room while Stan continued his terrifying tirade. "I run the show here bitch."

"Don't touch my sister!" Dipper shouted angrily through his teeth, clenching away the pain in his leg as he attempted unsuccessfully to squirm out of the shackles holding him down.

"Quiet boy!" The man yelled back, still staring at Mabel with demeaning eyes. "Or I'll shove a Brillo pad down your throat until it comes out of your ass." That silenced Dipper quickly, as he closed his mouth and prayed the Stan look-alike wouldn't hurt Mabel. Stanley's tone seemed to change when he focused his attention back at a crying Mabel. "Maybe if you two won't tell me now, you will after a nice snack." He said friendly like.

Although the twins weren't buying a single dime of it, they watched silently as he left from between them and went out of view, somewhere off to the side. Once they heard a door shut, Dipper immediately darted his eyes over to his sister. "Are you okay?"

Mabel nodded silently and worriedly whispered back. "We need to get out of here. This guy is insane."

"I know." Dipper answered as the pain started to subside from his slowly bleeding leg. "Do you see a switch or a lever anywhere?" The two twins moved their eyes around as best they could, scanning the room for some device that could release them from their restraints. However, all they could see was darkness, the lamps overhead were only bright enough to light up their surrounding area and nothing else.

Mabel opened her mouth to answer but closed it immediately once she heard the sound of a door squeaking open and then closed. "I brought snacks!" The gruff voice said happily as Stanley Pines came into the twins' sights and stood in front of them with a plate full of, what looked to be, bacon.

"What is that?" Dipper asked cautiously, examining the crisp, greasy plate the Grunkle Stan doppelgänger was holding.

"Why, it's bacon!" He exclaimed, a little too happily. "Who doesn't like bacon?" He asked rhetorically.

"Fair enough..." Dipper trailed off. "What's the catch?" He asked, knowing it was impossible that this man's hostility could have vanished in mere minutes.

"Catch? There is none. I figured we could just have some delicious food, while having a friendly chat." The man smiled and pulled a remote out of his pocket. After he pressed a red button, the shackle restraining both the twins' necks were removed and retracted back into the chair. "I think we got off on the wrong foot, and I apologize for being so rude to you two. I just get... lonely sometimes, being down here by myself." The man said forlornly, burying his face behind the plate.

"It's okay... we could keep you company." Mabel said softly.

"That'd be great!" Stanley said with jubilation. The man pulled a chair from a darkened corner of the room and sat it next to the twins. He then stuck a piece of bacon between each of their lips while he began to fire away questions.

"So, how'd you find this place?" He asked calmly and politely after swallowing a piece of bacon.

"Well, we were searching for my sister's pet pig." Dipper started before being interrupted.

"Waddles. You haven't seen him, have you?" Mabel asked.

The man was silent, and staring at Dipper, waiting for him to continue as he ignored Mabel's question. Dipper swallowed a lump in his throat and continued. "So we found this secret passage after we heard him oink, and we followed it down here."

"Hmm. Interesting." The man said, clearly pondering something.

"Umm, can I get some water?" Mabel asked. "My throat is dry."

The man looked at Mabel with daunting eyes and stood up. "Sure thing sweetie. Just let me go back into my five star kitchen, and whip you up a tall fucking glass of water like Gordon god damn Ramsey!" Stanley's voice had quickly raised to that of someone who was on the verge of exploding with fury. "You fucking ingrate!" Stanley took the white plate he had in his hand and threw it up against the wall that was closest to the twins, causing the porcelain to shatter into thirty different pieces. "I hope you know, you just ate your precious pig." He scoffed, spitting in the direction of the twins.

Dipper and Mabel's eyes could only widen in shock at the thought of eating the pet pig they had befriended for the past month. Immediately after it dawned on them, Mabel threw up on the floor in between the two chairs and began to sob.

"Oh, I'm sorry little girl. Grow the fuck up!" Stanley yelled, grabbing onto her hair and lifting her head from its lowered position. "You think I don't know what happened that day?" He said scornfully. "You're a selfish brat is what you are." He released Mabel's hair and then turned to Dipper, pointing a finger in his face. "And you're a spineless fool."

Dipper was taken aback by the sudden attack at him. "What... what do you mean?" He asked with confusion.

"Oh don't play stupid with me Dipper. You're a smart boy. Figure it out." Stanley snapped before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a large butcher's knife. "In the meanwhile..." He started, making his way towards Mabel while gently tapping the knife against his other palm. "Do you know why this place is called Chamber Thirteen?" There was no answer from the twins, with the fear that one wrong word would send the deranged man into another terrifying frenzy. "Don't be shy." He said with a devilish grin.

Dipper managed to choke up a few words that jumbled together to make a sentence. "Because thirteen is your lucky number?"

Stanley Pines grinned and appeared to give some sort of approval with the look in his eyes. "Close son, very close." Stanley seemed to drift away from consciousness for a second before shaking himself back into reality. "You see, when I was much younger, perhaps, a little older than you are now. I was mistaken for an eighteen year old boy and shipped off to fight in the Korean War. My childhood was much like the summer you've spent here, I knew about the paranormal things, I fought creatures with someone I no longer care about, but most importantly, I made a pact. A pact that would protect me from dying in exchange for a few things here and there." There was silence between the three before Stan continued. "Yes, Bill granted me immortality. I thought it was the coolest thing at the time. Not being able to die at such a young age. Well, I was wrong. When those fucking Koreans captured me and tortured me for thirteen straight years, using thirteen different mechanisms to get what they want. I wish I could have died instead of giving those fuckers the information they needed to assassinate Kennedy." Stanley paused.

The elderly man's eyes squinted in anguish from his memories. "But alas, you can only take so much at such a young age. Nonetheless, I managed to escape one brisk October morning before making my way back here to be reunited with my best friend. But, when I arrived, he could only see the evil in me, the Koreans had brainwashed me. So he locked me up down here and visits once in a while to give me food, tell me about what happened over the course of the week, or to stare and watch as I scream in agony from the nightmares that haunt my dreams." Stanley seemed to be tearing up and was visibly growing redder and angrier by the second. "So I made a vow. I promised to myself that before that piece of shit sibling Stanford Pines passed away, I would get revenge for all the locked up years I spent down here in this prison." Stanford grabbed a clump of hair from the top of Mabel's hair, reaching down to the roots. "And now, I have that chance." With one swoop of the blade, Stanley cleanly cut through Mabel's hair, just missing the top of her skull while cutting nearly all her hair off.

"I'm a simple man, Dipper and Mabel Pines. I know everything that goes on in and around this town. I know you're my grand niece and nephew, and if you think that changes anything you're dead wrong." Stanley said calmly in between Mabel's loud sobs. "The reason this place is called Chamber Thirteen is because I give you thirteen chances to prove your worth to me. Each lie, each refusal to answer, each stupid answer, and any fucking sound you make that doesn't answer a question I ask brings you one step closer to death!" Stanley said angrily as he walked up to Dipper and started to whisper in his ear. "And if you think this was the worst of it, you're in for a fucking shock boy." And with that, Stanley Pines took Dipper's hat and threw it across the room, all the while taking a fist full of hair and chopping it off his head. He then walked silently away, dropping the hair on the ground nonchalantly, as if it was trash, before leaving a sobbing pair of twins alone. "Strike two." He called out as a door slammed shut and darkness encompassed Chamber Thirteen.


End file.
